I tapped my pen on the desk. My eyes squinted at the word problems in front of me.

     Math was easy back in second grade when teachers made us practice multiplication tables. When fifth grade came, the tables turned. Math became a nightmare. 

     "Oh," my mom says at the dinner table every night. "Have you heard of the IMO? The winners this year are Asian. You're Asian, so you should go there, too."

     Yeah, right. My grades weren't good enough for the IMO. It was the International Mathematical Olympiad, and qualifying for it was as impossible as going to Mars. 

     My stomach churned as I scribbled a star on the math problem. A star meant I had no idea how to answer it. It was a code my friend told me to use for questions that seemed unsolvable. 

     I opened my phone to call my friend, but Mom barged into the room before I could hit the button. She never asks permission. 

     "Nicole, why aren't you done with your homework yet?" she asked, tapping my textbook twice. "You're supposed to be faster. Look at the time. It's already dinner." 

     "No problem," I said. "I can finish my homework after dinner. It's no big deal."

     "Nah, you'll just be calling your friends again," Mom said. She rolled her eyes.

     It wasn't like I called my friends for fun. We talked every night so they could help me with my math homework. Of course, I couldn't say that. They weren't supposed to be the ones who were good at math. 

     I was. 

*** 

     Flip, flip, flip. My math teacher walked around the room, giving us our test papers. Sweat dripped from my palms as he handed me my test paper: thirty logarithmic problems. 

     "You have fifteen minutes," he said, setting the timer on the projector.

     I had a staring contest with the test paper, unable to answer any questions. 

     Voices of my friends' math lessons came into my head. "Log both sides. Change to exponential form. You can do this. It's easy." 

     Math was the opposite of easy. 

     "You haven't answered anything yet," my teacher said, pausing by my seat the same way my mother did. "Anyway, I'm sure you will get a good score on your test."

     Two days later, the results came. I failed. 

*** 

     My friends and I sat on the soft grass, facing the town. Brown and yellow birds flew over us as we chatted about everything under the sun. 

     "I got my report card, did you?" Ethan asked, sipping his soda. He sighed after swallowing the drink. 

     "Duh," I said, pushing his shoulder and laughing. "We go to the same school!" 

     "How's your math grade?" he asked. "I got an A."

     Suddenly, a pang of jealousy hit me. My hands shook. I wished I could grab his report card and scribble my name on it. How could anyone get an A in math? Twelve hours of work couldn't bring my grade up to a B+. 

     "Yeah, it's good," I said, swallowing and crossing my arms. "My math teacher likes me a lot. He says I'm smart." 

     My math teacher called me stupid in front of my parents during the last parent-teacher conference. Mom and Dad grounded me for two weeks after the meeting. 

     "Oh, that's nice," Amelia said. "I got full marks in my advanced math classes. Ninety-eight in advanced algebra two and ninety-seven in advanced pre-calculus." 

     My heart almost stopped beating. For a moment, I wanted to mourn my existence. Dad had always wanted a child like her. 

     "Looks like someone's going to Ivy League," Ethan teased.

     Everyone else laughed too hard. It was like they had just watched a stand-up comedy. Someone even rolled down the hill while giggling. 

     Me? I spent the rest of the time staring at the sky, wishing that those were my math grades, too. 

*** 

     Dad and I shared the couch, putting our feet on the table. We sat like billionaires on a fancy beach vacation, munching sour cream popcorn from the mall. Our eyes were glued to the TV as it blasted the news. 

     "Once again, Asian countries top the PISA charts in math," a blonde woman caked in makeup said. She spoke to her colleagues like a robot, debating the PISA scores.

     Those scores were like gold to my parents. It was the biggest test on earth. Everyone from every country took it. Then, parents and teachers compared their children's scores. If someone scored below average, it meant failure for the rest of their life. 

     Videos of East Asian children studying with twelve books on their desks played while the newscasters argued about Asians being good at math. 

     "See?" Dad said, pointing at the other kids on TV. "They're studying all day. Doing math. Meanwhile, you spend your free time on the computer."

     "But I'm writing, Dad," I said.

     "Is that a real job? Does it make money?" he asked, stuffing popcorn into his mouth. 

     I tightened my lips, hiding my tears. "You may not consider it a 'real job,' but to me it is, and I treat it like one," I said.

     I wanted to scream at Dad's face, but that couldn't happen. "Good" Asian children only have one choice in situations like these: obey. And right now, Dad was telling me to be better at math. 

     I had to do something — everything — for better grades. 

     I lifted my head while looking through my packed calendar, cramming sticky notes on each square. Every second of my next month had math: math tutor, math classes, and math practice. 

     "Great job," Dad said, clapping his hands from behind me. "You will be a very successful person when you grow up." 

     Successful. The word rang in my ears. It seemed like everyone waged war with each other to be successful. How important must it be? Stories of brothers killing each other for success played in my head. 

     "Asians are good at math. That's why they're successful. If you're good at math, then you will be successful," Dad said before leaving my room. 

     I was supposed to be happy, but sadness sunk inside me. How could I be Asian but not good at math? Was I a failure?

***

     A strange email came into my inbox: I won a writing contest.

     I closed my eyes, imagining Dad hugging me and talking about my potential.

     Not possible. It's not math. I had to be good at math, not writing. 

     "Is everything all right?" my new math teacher asked me.

     I nodded before continuing my work. She smiled at me and then wrote a long equation on the board. My old teacher was in the other classroom. 

     We spent the rest of the class answering different questions — hard questions. The concepts were like rocket science. Nothing could stick in my brain. My head hurt like crazy after class, causing me to walk like a penguin. 

     But for the first time, I felt proud of myself. My friends huddled around me after class, begging me to do their math homework. Mom spammed the family chat with compliments and stickers, praising me for taking the course.

     I didn't take just any math class. I took the hardest math class in school. 

*** 

     My back hunched in the new leather chair Mom had gifted me during dinnertime. The math textbook's pages rustled as I flipped through its chapters. Every lesson fit with each other like a puzzle. Except I had no idea what the topics were. 

     I banged my head on the book, hoping the words would stick in my brain. It didn't work. Answering a question was like decoding a foreign language. Worse, I still had to do my friends' homework and give them perfect scores.

     My stomach churned. I felt the urge to sob and write my feelings in my diary, but I had to study like everyone expected. So I bent my back more and worked 'til midnight. 

     The next day, my friends refused to talk to me. It meant more math. 

***

     I had spent the past few weeks studying from dawn until dusk. My failing grades hung on the wall before me as a reminder to do better. Math textbooks from the library were scattered all over my desk. Reviewers flew around the room. 

     I stared at the questions until I started seeing double. My eyes got heavy and the math worksheet got blurrier by the second.

     "No, please," I yawned, throwing myself into a pile of books. 

     Beep, beep! The clock struck midnight.

     When would I ever be enough?

     "Oww..." I moaned.

     Acid bubbled in my stomach, raging like a fierce thunderstorm. My body felt like it was ripping itself apart. I curled myself into a ball on my bed, praying for the storm to leave. 

     "Nicole, are you not going to school?" Mom asked, entering the room. She brought a metal tray with chicken noodle soup.

     "I can't," I said, my voice screeching through the room. The hours of studying left me unable to lift a finger.

     "I'm calling the doctor," Mom said with a frown.

     Two hours later, we sat beside each other, squeezing ourselves into the tiny phone screen. The doctor laughed when he saw us.

     "What happened, dear?" he asked. His marble teeth shone through the screen. 

     "My child is sick. She has a headache and stomachache, and no medicine seems to cure it," Mom told him. 

     "Well, how do you feel?" the doctor asked me.

     "Dizzy," I said, swallowing my vomit. "My back hurts like stones are on it." 

     "What have you been doing in your free time?" the doctor asked. He sipped a cup of tea. 

     "I'm so proud of my dearest daughter," Mom said in her sweet voice. "She's been doing math all day." 

     "Math all day?" The doctor's face crumpled. "Look, I did that too. That's too much."

     "You did?" My face perked up.

     He nodded, telling me stories about his Asian childhood. They were just like mine! He talked about how his supportive parents couldn't protect him from stereotypes, and how his teachers expected too much from him because of his looks. 

     Tears flowed down my cheeks as he shared story after story. So my struggles were real, after all. For the first time, I felt seen. All this time, I thought other Asians couldn't relate to me because they were good at math, like my friends. 

     I sighed a breath of relief. It felt like releasing a thousand stones from my back. 

     "Honey, it's ok," Mom said. She hugged me as the doctor told us what to do. "Everything is fine, and you're fine." 

     Why did she say that? Tears also streamed down her face as she nodded at everything the doctor said. Did she face this pressure too? Was it the first time she felt validated? 

     I smiled at her like never before. Imagine living forty years with those expectations. 

     "So," the doctor told me. "Listen to yourself and cut down the math, understand?" 

     An idea popped into my head.